As soccer fans around the globe take in the World Cup games, there’s a select few Canadians who can reminisce about the coveted experience — the players from the first and last time Canada’s national men’s team qualified, nearly 30 years ago.

“It was an incredible experience,” said Surrey’s Paul Dolan, who was just 20 years old when he travelled to Mexico in 1986 to represent Canada at the World Cup.

“For any footballer, you know, it’s the ultimate,” added Vancouver Whitecaps commentator, David Norman, who was also part of the team at 24 years old.

Today, 28 years later, Norman can still picture himself “standing in the tunnels” before that first game against France — “one of the top teams at the time.”

“You’re standing there, looking down their line, looking at the players they’ve got,” said Norman. “That was the ultimate moment ... in my soccer career.”

And while it’s a moment more than 20 Canadian team members will forever cherish, Dolan can’t help but think back to his 20-year-old self who assumed he’d make it back to the World Cup “two, three, four, or five times.”

“I think we all had further ambition and expectations that Canada would be back at some point,” he said. “And, of course, we never got back.”

According to Dolan, this leads to a question that comes up every four years: “Why are we, 28 years later, still not back at the World Cup?”

And, not surprisingly, most of it is pinpointed to the shortcomings of the current youth soccer system.

For Norman, he thinks back to when he was a budding young player, when there weren’t academies or soccer camps for him to go to.

“I just played,” he said, adding that he always had a ball at his feet, forever ready for a game of street soccer. “It was such different days.”

But today, with so many outlets, from “club level, to private academies, to provincial level, to national level,” there seems to be too many competing approaches to youth development.

“It does seem like there’s a massive problem in the country of everybody getting on the same page and doing what’s best for the game and not what’s best for their academy or their private school or their club,” said Norman. “We need everybody on the same page — I don’t think we have that.”

And while he admits the various bodies are doing some good work — “it’s just not co-ordinated,” he said.

Dolan also sees an issue with the lack of retention in the game.

“We’re losing a lot of our players to other sports,” he said. “In every other country in the world the best athletes are playing soccer.”

“(In Canada) you have the better athletes going to hockey, almost thinking that there’s a better chance of a professional outlet there.”

But he’s growing hopeful as Canadian Major League Soccer continues to develop, from the Vancouver Whitecaps to the Montreal Impact, Toronto FC and Ottawa Fury.

“There’s a platform now for young kids to aspire to,” Dolan said. “For me, it was less about a structured development, I think, than just a desire to want to play for the Whitecaps and for Canada.

“Having the Whitecaps in our community was a motivator for me.”

It comes down to “that desire and that passion for the sport,” said Dolan. “You become good at something because you want to do it, not because you’re forced to do it.”

And, of course, it’s about enjoyment, Dolan added as he thought back to that “young goalkeeper against a team that was going to hammer us” in the 1986 World Cup.

“I remember a moment when it was scoreless, midway through the second half. The French kept coming and coming,” he said. “(I remember) saying to my teammates, ‘Let’s not give them one now — we’re having too much fun here.’”

“Even in that big moment, with a lot of pressure on ... you can still enjoy the moment.”

Canada lost 1-0 to France, and fell 2-0 to Hungary and the Soviet Union.

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